Missouri school board backpedals on Black studies ban

A week after an all-White school board in St. Charles County, Missouri, voted to remove Black studies electives from the curriculum, members reversed their decision.

The Francis Howell School District, located in a suburb of St. Louis, will resume offering Black history and literature electives for the 2024-2025 school year.

The standards were first adopted in 2020 following protests over the police lynching of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The reversal by the Missouri school board comes after nationwide public outcry and student protests. It also came just before the local NAACP was set to hold a meeting on the issue, according to KSDK.

“After thorough discussions, we believe there is an appropriate path forward to offer Black History and Black Literature with an updated curriculum standard in the 2024-25 school year,” Board President Adam Bertrand and Superintendent Kenneth Roumpos said in a joint statement.

States launch coordinated attacks on Black studies

The targeting of Black history and studies courses didn’t begin with the Missouri school board.

It heated up in January 2023, when Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis notoriously banned the College Board’s new AP African American history course from public high schools across the state. Claiming the courses “lack educational value,” DeSantis’ culture war has spread to other states.

In August, the Arkansas Department of Education announced the new AP African American history course would no longer be supported by the state or garner college credit for students.

And in Oklahoma, Republicans Governor Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters have worked to remove diversity, equity and inclusion programs and curriculums from K-12 schools and state-funded public universities.

The ban comes after Oklahoma signed HB 1775, a bill that limits teachings on race and gender. The law has resulted in an Orwellian chilling effect in Oklahoma classrooms and targeting of the state’s largest, most diverse school district, Tulsa Public Schools.

Notably, state leaders from Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas and now Francis Howell School Board in Missouri have all claimed their decisions to restrict teachings of Black history are about making sure students don’t learn about social justice or racial bias.

Related Stories:

• Racist Florida Governor blocks AP African American history courses
• Opinion: Arkansas fears students will see Black people as equals
• Op-ed: Why Oklahoma doesn’t need DEI

Missouri school board not a fan of social justice standards

Specifically, the school board officials in St. Charles County, Missouri, disagreed with the inclusion of “Social Justice Standards -A Framework for Anti-Bias Education” included in the Black history and literature electives.

According to the framework’s website, the standards teach students to develop positive social identities of themselves, embrace the diversity of others, and learn how to recognize stereotypes, biases and prejudices.

In their reversal of the ban, the school board noted it approved an updated version of the courses, without specifying what those updates leave out.

Notably, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones recognized the school district as one that once tried to keep Black students from transferring to its schools.